BOULDER — The journey that brought Janet Cherobon-Bawcom from the rural hills of Kenya to U.S. citizenship, a spot on Team USA in Monday's Bolder Boulder and very possibly a berth on the U.S. Olympic team this summer is a love story that feels like it was meant to be.

Because it sure is improbable, beginning as it did with a "care package" of Kenyan tea and spices her mother sent with an American man she met in Kenya while her daughter was running track in Arkansas.

A decade later Cherobon-Bawcom would become an American citizen because she fell in love with the man who delivered that package, and also with the "opportunity" she found in this country. It's working out pretty well for her running career too.

Janet Cherobon-Bawcom, who came to the U.S. from Kenya and became an American citizen, placed second among the Bolder Boulder's elite women Monday.

Having become eligible to run for the United States on Labor Day last year, she finished second in Monday's race, leading the U.S. women to second place in the International Team Challenge. In January she finished fifth at the marathon Olympic Trials, and she is looking like a good bet to make the team for London in the 10,000 meters.

"There's no doubt Janet's setting herself up," said Deena Kastor, who finished third in the women's race won by Mamitu Daska of Ethiopia. "She's had a tremendous season, tearing it up on the roads from last fall to this spring, really dominated the U.S. road circuit."

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A nearly full Folsom Field roared its appreciation when Cherobon-Bawcom burst into the stadium only 17 seconds behind Daska. Although she grew up thousands of miles from Boulder, she understands the meaning of Memorial Day in her adopted country.

"It is just awesome," said Cherobon-Bawcom, 33. "It's a great opportunity for me to just have this moment to celebrate with 50,000 other people for the sacrifices people have given."

Nearly 48,000 participants finished the extraordinarily popular Bolder Boulder, which wrapped up its 34th year at Folsom Field. RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post

Cherobon-Bawcom left Kenya in August 2000 to run track at Harding University in Searcy, Ark. That same month Jay Bawcom left Searcy to spend a year as a volunteer teacher in Eldoret, Kenya.

"We trade places," Bawcom said.

In Eldoret he met Cherobon-Bawcom's mother, also a teacher. They discovered he was from the small town far away where Cherobon-Bawcom went to get an education.

A month after Bawcom went to Kenya, he was on a medivac flight back to Arkansas with a fellow teacher who had an emergency appendectomy. He delivered the package and went back to Kenya, having failed to make an impression on Cherobon-Bawcom.

"You know what was funny?" Cherobon-Bawcom said. "I had a roommate, and after we met him, she was like, 'That guy is hot.' "

"Her roommate had a thing for me," Bawcom said, "but not her."

Two years later, Bawcom was back in Arkansas and went to a track meet to watch one of his students run. After the race, he went out to dinner with some runners on the team — including Cherobon-Bawcom.

"She and I ended up sitting next to each other," Bawcom said, "and we've been sitting next to each other ever since."

Bawcom is a romantic, and clever. He proposed in March 2005, the night she won the 5,000 meters at the Division II collegiate national championships.

"I proposed after the race," Bawcom said. "I figured if she lost, I'd cheer her up, and if she won, she'd be in a good mood and wouldn't say no."

After graduating from Harding, she went to nursing school in Rome, Ga., where the couple live. Her recent success in running has put nursing on hold.

"She does it because it's fun," Bawcom said. "In some ways, running is kind of keeping her from getting on with her (nursing) career, but she's having a blast with it, so there's no reason to stop right now."

And whether or not she makes the Olympic team, she felt blessed to run for Team USA on a solemn American holiday a long way from Eldoret.

"It is another advantage, for sure, to be able to represent such a great country," Cherobon-Bawcom said. "It is such a great opportunity."